


Rooted in a Bitter Feeling

by Kamary



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Child Murder, Gen, Self-Hatred, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5594056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamary/pseuds/Kamary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asgore and the six unnamed humans. <br/>(It's easier to be angry than to accept your own sadness.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooted in a Bitter Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people say that the other human probably couldn't reload, but I think they could. Asgore seems to know humans can reload, and Toriel says that she sometimes knows things before they happen around humans. As such, I'm going off the assumption they can reload, they just aren't determined enough to go through dying fifty times, unlike certain people *cough* Frisk *cough*.

You met the second child in the ruins. They were a slight thing, with a ribbon tied around their neck and a plastic knife in their hands. You must not have been the first challenge they faced, given the sticky bandages that covered their arms and legs. You stood in their way, trident at the ready.

Part of you (most of you) did not want to kill this child. Why would you ever want to kill a child? With their flushed and hollowed cheeks, they reminded you so much of Chara when they first fell. You wished you could wrap them up in your arms and tell them that you weren’t going to hurt them, that you were going to take them home, and that you’d be their new father. They looked like they needed it. This child obviously hadn’t had a good meal in a while.

But you couldn’t do that. Monsters, adaptable and kind, needed hope like they needed water. If they couldn’t imagine a way escaping from the barrier, if you kept adopting the humans, they wouldn’t have a chance to escape, ever. Besides, wasn’t it you that said, in anger, that all humans must die? They killed your child after all. You felt anger at first, because anger was easier to deal with then the sadness and emptiness that came with realizing you’d lost both your children.

You couldn’t hate humans for long, though. Your second child, Chara, had been human. Even if they’d tried to hurt you, or end the world, you could never hate them. They were your child, and they meant the world to you. However, your kingdom came first, and you had to free it. You steeled your eyes and began to fight.

The child’s soul was cyan. If you remembered your lessons from before the war, you knew that this meant that the child was patient. Soul colours had been required learning during the war. It taught you how each human fault. Cyan, slow, but precise. Dodging was exact, so large sweeping attacks were best.

The child tried to talk to you, to convince you they meant no harm. They offered you their name, told you that they just wanted to be friends, they tried to spare you. They started the fight with a slash from their toy knife. Even though you were strong, it cut through your leg like butter. You increased the strength of your attack, and they went down easily. They attacked with soft, hopeless attacks. You easily beat them down. They looked at you with sad, dead eyes and accepted their fate.

It was strange, to have all of these different memories of the fight, but you did. Your brain automatically corrected it to being just one, but you still knew, in your heart, that they had all happened. Finally, the fight stopped replaying, and a cyan soul was left.

You still sometimes hear Toriel’s furious shriek in your ears. The door ruins was locked, and though you could easily order a Froggit or Moldsmal to slide under and open the door for you, you never did. You just didn’t have the heart to do that.

\---

The third child made it just to the outskirts of Snowdin before you got there. Their gloves were covered in a thick dust, and one of your Guard Dogs just barely made it to New Home before falling to dust. You were angry when you arrived, but it still couldn’t make you truly hate the human child in front of you.

Their soul burned orange. Bravery. You remembered in the war these humans were the easiest to kill. They charged you, tried to take you on even if they didn’t stand a chance. They were often confused with determined humans, who were far more dangerous. This child, though, there was something broken in their eyes. They tried to take your attacks with little effort to dodge and doled out equal damage. Your body burned in pain and you took them down.

Every time they repeated the fight, you became more and more frustrated. They, in turn, became more and more vicious. They were dustier, ands dustier, and you would later find claw marks on the ruin doors like they tried to get inside to earn more EXP and gain more LOVE. The thought of them hurting Toriel disgusted you.

You don’t know how many times you fought them before they stayed down for good. When you did, it made you wonder, could all humans do that thing? A sudden, bitter feeling rose in your chest. You knew its origin, but pushed it down. You just collected the soul and went to find help for the survivors in the area.

\---

The fourth child was met a bit before Waterfall. They had a few monsters following them, and you could see why. A serene grace coming off of them, lit was almost magnetic. By far, they were the oldest of the humans. It made it easier, you would tell yourself, but it didn’t really. All humans were children to you, and this one was no difference.

They wore a dancing outfit, which suited them perfectly, as they danced and twirled for the monsters they had gathered. Some monsters sung soft tunes for the human, which they matched with their graceful movements. It was captivating, and you watched for a while, until you remembered your mission.

You told the human to fight, and the first time they did so. Their soul glowed a dark blue, a soul of integrity, the desire to do right. They were in the right, and you weren’t, but you didn’t stop. What was right and what was wrong all depending on whose side of the story you were seeing, you told yourself and continued.

They never tried to hurt you, only to spare you. With the same serene disgrace as before, they moved between attacks and tried to convince you not to fight. Their monster friends were torn, but they convinced them it was okay. And then they died. Two more times, you come remember them trying this, though you heart said it was many, many more times, before finally, as you approached with your battle plan, they sat down on the ground and spoke.

“Take my soul. If it means my friends can escape, I don’t mind. What I would have to do to get past you isn’t worth it.”

It broke your heart to hear this, but you accepted. To your surprise, when you killed them this time, there was no sense of doing it was a second time. Like that, it was over. Their friends took their things and tried to hide them. A burial, they were saying. They didn’t know how to scatter human dust, but they could at least do this. They let you take the body and soul.

The bitter feeling in your chest from before grew stronger.

\---

The fifth child didn’t come much later, but you didn’t even know they existed until they were right in front of you. The sneaky child had made it to Waterfall without anyone noticing them. They’d in fact, been living in the trash for a while. Only one or two monsters had seen them, and never ones smart enough to figure out that they were human.

Filthy and tired, the child didn’t stop. Their soul glowed purple, a soul of perseverance. It was the natural of that type of soul to be able to take a lot before they gave up. They couldn’t hit hard, you didn’t think they were really trying, but when you hit them multiple times, you only seemed to be hurt by the first blow. That was the nature of their soul type. They lasted the longest in battle after the determined souls.

They tried to outlast you, you think. Their pockets were overflowing with discarded monster food, which they used to heal themselves. They did this many times, but you were still stronger than them. If they had honestly tried to hurt you, though think the fight could have gone a different way, but they didn’t. So you won and you won and you won.

The battles lasted so long, and there were so many of them. You felt your Hope Points drop as you decided maybe you didn’t want to win, but no, you wouldn’t lose to them. You couldn’t lose, for the sake of your people, so you carried on and on. After what felt like years, they finally stopped coming back. When they did, you felt lost. It felt like you’d been fighting them your whole life, and something about that made you horribly, horribly sad. Through your hundreds of battles, you grew to know this child better than you knew your own, and it killed you inside.

The bitterness grew.

\---

You met the sixth child only because a flustered Tsundereplane that flew by the gardening class you were teaching was complaining about a perverted human. You expected to meet someone perverse, but instead, you found them hugging monsters. You followed them for a while, not wanting a repeat of what happened with the third soul, before coming out of your hiding place to confront them.

Until this point, all the children shared a feature, hollow, sunken cheeks from underfeeding. This one didn’t. Their cheeks were full, like their smile, and they actually looked a little overweight. They exuded trust and love. That’s what made it so hard to break that trust by telling them you were there to kill them. They sadly accepted their fate and readied themselves for battle.

The battle was long, not like the last one, but because they kept asking to pause to make themselves snacks, and being a silly child they offered you some too. You didn’t have the heart to ask them not to. They died easily. Their soul, green and full of kindness, wasn’t built for battle. They didn’t have any attacking skills, only defending. Even if they tried to hurt you, you were pretty sure that if they did it would heal you rather than heal you.

They returned, reloaded, the fewest amount of times. By this point, you accepted that was something humans could do. You collected their soul and took it home with you.

Your bitterness was overwhelming.

\---

You knew about the seventh human the moment they stepped out of the ruins. You were worried, because if they had been carving a path of dust through your guards, what had happened to Toriel? You couldn’t be sure she was truly alive, and it made you frantic.

Monsters were evacuated to New Home before you were sent to deal with the problem. You wanted to get to them before they got to Snowdin, but monsters were stalling you. They feared for you, for their kind king, because they didn’t know what to do without you. The new captain of the royal, Undyne, might be a good replacement, but she was still very young.

Eventually, you, got free of your people, but not before the human made it all the way to the spider’s den. When you meet their eyes, you are afraid, if only for a moment. They don’t seem cruel, just cold and disconnected. They raise their weapon (a gun from what you remember Chara saying to you), and point it toward you. They are ready to destroy them, even though your fears for your wife make your defense lower than it should be, before they speak.

“You look like mom, but don’t have a good heart like here. Justice will be swift.”

The cold, robotic words, brought you comfort. You know their soul colour before it shows. It is yellow, the colour of justice. If they said Toriel was good, she was alive. They were misguided, but they only attacked those they considered wrong. It horrified you to hear them call Toriel mom, but you should have known. She was too kind.

The fight was quick, only because of their mistake. They clicked their weapon, but an attack never came. For a moment, their robotic façade dropped, but not quick enough. You finished them off with your trident easily. The second time, they tried to run, but you caught them in the back and they died with their defense down. From then on, they tried to fight with the hilt of their gun, and though it hurt horribly due to their LOVE, they didn’t have enough experience with it to be able to beat you.

You took their soul and your bitterness was undeniable. You couldn’t deny its true form.

\---

The final child readied their weapon in front of you, tears in their eyes. Your memories told you that they had fought you enough times that they knew you wouldn’t give them the option to spare you. You couldn’t even look them in the face. They looked too much like Chara. You didn’t want to fight, but duty and bitterness kept you here.

You were so, so bitter. Everytime you looked at the souls or another human, you were overwhelmed by it. The bitter anger, the question of why they could all come back when Chara, your child, could not, overwhelmed you. Even more so, you were unable to deny why. The blue soul had showed you the truth. If a person doesn’t want to return, they don’t.

And so you had to face the truth, and let the sadness become bitterness. It was easier to hate yourself, then try to understand the despair Chara must have felt to get to that point. Maybe if you could get the seven souls and set monsters free, you could make up for not noticing your child’s pain.


End file.
